First: Two hours a day of exercise is excessive for most people. You should be able to do more intense exercise for anywhere from 30-60 minutes and get good results.
Second: When you say "greatly lowered" ... what exactly do you mean? If you lower your calories too much, you could actually have the opposite result, because you're depriving your body of needed nutrition.
Third: Two weeks isn't really very long. Some people take longer than that for their bodies to readjust to a different "system". If you've made huge, drastic changes, you need to give your body time to acclimate. Many people don't see an immediate loss, but tend to lose in fits and starts, rather than gradually and consistently.
However, in general it's going to be hard for anyone to give you any advice until we know more ... so details please!
HOw much do you weigh now?
How tall are you?
Male or female?
Age?
How many calories are you consuming?
What kind of food?
What kind of exercise?
With that information, we can probably give you some pretty good idea of what might be the problem.
.
Last edited by PhotoChick; 10-23-2008 at 02:38 AM.
The exercise bike is good but should not be your only source of exercise. You need both cardio and aerobic. You can use food cans as weights to get some strength training in. If you don't plan to exercise 2 hours a day for the rest of your life, don't do it now. As soon as you cut back, you will gain.
Use a program like The Daily Plate or FitDay ad enter what you eat and find out how many calories you are really eating. Do you weigh and measure your portions or just guess? We often eat more than we think.
2 weeks isn't long enough to suspect a thyroid problem.
My advice would be:
~Try 1800-1900 calories a day, and be sure that you are counting EVERYTHING. If it passes your lips, count it. Be sure that you are accurately measuring everything, and counting accordingly.
~Do something besides the exercise bike. Walk one day, do the bike the next day, get a dvd like yoga or Pilates or something and do it one day...mix it up a little bit.
~Give it some time. One week I will lose 1/2 a pound, and the next week I will lose 3 pounds, and the next week I will lose nothing. Over time, however, the general trend is DOWN.
Based on what you describe, I can't see why you wouldn't lose weight. A few things that I would suggest:
Track your actual calories for about a week just to make sure you're eating what you think you're eating. And be very careful to measure portion sizes instead of eyeballing. When I first started counting calories I was surprised at what I was really eating vs. what I thought I was eating. It's very easy to add 500+ calories a day just by underestimating portion sizes and calorie guides.
Also I would still suggest that 2 hours a day of exercise is too much, as is 7 days a week. Your body needs resting time as well as exercise time. Not allowing for rest and recovery is a mistake some people make starting out.
So I'd say track your calories and cut back to about 60 mins a day of exercise for now. See where that gets you after a week.
One thing I might also suggest, if you're out and about, is to carry a little notebook to write down what you eat. It's sooo easy to grab a snack and forget about it. With a notebook, everything's in print.
I agree with everything everyone here has said.. They are great tips! I might also add that when I diet close to perfect it works for awhile and then I get stuck.. i have found that to lose the weight you have to have a little fat in your diet as well.. I don't know if it is the same for everyone.. but it seems to work for me
This is soooooooo frustrating
The muscle you build will keep burning more calories.
